EDMONTON, ALTA: ¬†OCTOBER 29, 2015 --Jeff Petry (26) as the Edmonton Oilers play the Montreal Canadiens at Rexall place in Edmonton, October 29, 2015.Photo by Bruce Edwards/ Edmonton Journal

Oilers essentially gave away top NHL puckmovers like Gustafsson, Petry and Schultz

It’s hard to pinpoint the single largest organizational flaw of the Edmonton Oilers during the Decade of Darkness-plus, but surely high on the list has been the team’s propensity to give up on puck-moving d-men when they still have plenty of miles left in their careers.

Year after year after year, the Oilers trade away or fail to bring back puckmovers, from elite ones to bottom-pairing ones.

It’s as if the franchise has an organizational blind spot for the value of this kind of player.

The trait is so pronounced and ongoing that it’s fair to wonder who will go next from the Oilers to some other lucky team, with little or nothing coming back in return.

Caleb Jones? Ethan Bear? Joel Persson?

The blind spot on puckmovers from 2006 to present

Which puckmovers have moved out? The list is as long as it is painful, starting with Chris Pronger and Jaroslav Spacek in 2005-06, moving on to Marc-Andre Bergeron in 2006-07, Joni Pitkanen in 2007-08, Denis Grebeshkov, Lubomir Visnovsky, and Sheldon Souray in 2009-10, Tom Gilbert in 2011-12, Taylor Fedun in 2013-14, Jeff Petry and Erik Gustafsson, in 2014-15, Justin Schultz and Brad Hunt in 2015-16 and Jordan Oesterle in 2016-17.

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Fedun, Petry, Hunt, Oesterle, Gustafsson and Schultz are all active with other NHL teams this year, with the clever and skilled Gustafsson ninth in NHL scoring for d-men, with 48 points in 65 games for Chicago, and Petry 16th in scoring for d-men, with 41 points in 69 games for Montreal.

Nicely done, Oilers management.

It’s a damn shame Petry and Gustafsson are not anchoring the Oilers power play right now, but Oilers management blundered with them, just like they did with so many others that they let slip away.

Of course, Pronger asked to be traded, but no puck-moving d-man came back in return. The savvy Spacek left as a free agent. Bergeron, Pitkanen and Grebeshkov were all weak defensively, so weren’t missed so much. But veterans Visnovsky and Souray both had several strong years after the Oilers moved them out.

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In 2012, Oilers management preferred Nick Schultz’s boring, calm and largely ineffective game to Tom Gilbert’s steady puck-moving, so that trade was made. Then the Oilers under-valued Petry, evidently preferring players such as Mark Fayne and Nikita Nikitin. Petry was moved in 2015.

Edmonton failed to sign draft pick Gustafsson, not deeming him worthy of an NHL contract. Fedun, Oesterle and Hunt weren’t seen as bottom-pairing options, while Justin Schultz was essentially run out of town, a victim of being fed too difficult minutes by Oilers management.

In the Chiarelli era, there was some value seen in puck-moving, hence the major investment in Andrej Sekera, but there was also massive value placed on big, physical d-men like Griffin Reinhart, Adam Larsson, Eric Gryba, Brandon Manning and Alex Petrovic.

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The blind spot in 2018-19 — strong as ever

It’s safe to say that if the Oilers had an elite puck-moving defenceman or two, the team would be in the playoffs this year.

Puck-moving remains a huge hole on the squad, with the team constantly bogged down in its own zone due to the inability of its d-men to make a good, fast, accurate first pass to spring an attack out of the zone.

At the offensive end, goals are hard to come by for the team, partly because when the puck goes back to the points it’s unlikely to end up in the opposition net through a hard shot or slick pass. The return of Sekera and Oscar Klefbom to the roster has shored up this major weakness somewhat, but only somewhat.

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When it comes to moving the puck fast and true, the Oilers d-men remain mediocre at best by NHL standards, with Darnell Nurse great at skating the puck but still prone to fumbles passing, with Kris Russell mainly known for dumping it up the boards, with Matt Benning often fighting the puck and with Larsson far more of a defender than an attacker.

Most recently, Caleb Jones made a huge impression as a puck-mover, but he was forced into the top-pairing and not surprisingly struggled to defend. What was surprising is that the Oilers didn’t keep him on the third-pairing, instead preferring non-puck-movers like Manning and Petrovic. Did this make any sense? Not to me.

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The Oilers acquisition of Manning and Petrovic also speaks poorly of their view of the game. San Jose had hemmed in Ken Hitchcock’s Oilers with a ferocious cycle, but instead of deciding to beat the cycle with speed and puckmoving, the Oilers opted for bigger, slow and physical d-men. It was an indictment of the entire organization. Everyone who had a major hand in these disastrous decisions needs to be identified and moved out from that level of decision-making, if not the organization.

Here’s what Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock said after Petrovic and Manning were acquired: “Well, knowing the business I’ve been in for it feels like my whole life, it’s really hard to make trades when you’re in a situation that we were in injury-wise (with Kris Russell, Oscar Klefbom and Andrej Sekera all out), so Pete and Keith especially deserve a lot of credit for trying to help us here.”

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Manning and Petrovic are both third-pairing NHL d-men, Hitchcock said. “We did our background on both guys, we know both guys very well, especially Manning and they help us keep this thing going, and all the work we’ve put in, we just didn’t want to take another step backwards. We were struggling back there, I think everybody knew it including the opposition and these two guys are going to help us get pucks out of our zone, defend better…”

How the Oilers blundered with Erik Gustafsson

Of course, add an elegant attacker like Erik Gutsafsson to this group and there might well be an entirely different dynamic. Indeed, at this point the offensively-gifted Gus is the biggest kick in the shins for Oilers fans.

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When the Oilers drafted Gustafsson in the fourth round in 2012, head scout Stu MacGregor said: “Offensive, skilled defenceman. Again, a puck-mover we can hopefully fit in with the rest of our group to give us some puck movers and some size.”

Erik Gustafsson, Edmonton Oilers fourth round pick in 2012

At the 2012 Oilers development camp, Jonathan Willis of the Cult of Hockey gave the new pick a rave review, “No defenseman at the Oilers’ summer development camp impressed me more than Gustafsson. With the usual caveats (it’s one game, in the middle of summer, against poor opposition), I thought several things stood out. Gustafsson was poised when under pressure with the puck in his own end, never seeming to get caught in a bad position but never rushing to make a pass either. He was the most polished defender of the group; while others stood out with size or with a physical game or with pure speed Gustafsson was the one who seemed to be in the right place doing the right things all of the time. I came away with the impression of an intelligent player equally adept at being in the correct position and seeing the play developing on the ice.”

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At the Cult, we had him as the 16th top prospect in the Oilers system.

At the 2013 development camp, the Cult’s Bruce McCurdy noted: “Smooth skater, made the little things look easy.” At the Cult we had him as the 18th top prospect in the Oilers system.

When Gutsafsson signed with the Chicago Blackhawks in the spring of 2015, Willis wrote at the Cult of Hockey: “It always seemed a little odd that the Edmonton Oilers chose not to sign Erik Gustafsson. The defenceman, a fourth-round pick of the team in 2012 Draft, has progressed steadily overseas and emerged as an offensive contributor in Sweden’s excellent top league. Generally, that’s the kind of skillset that warrants at least a look in the AHL…. At the Oilers’ summer development camp, Gustafsson impressed with his intelligence and polish; he made good decisions with the puck under pressure and was generally in the right places when he didn’t have the puck… If Gustafsson turns out, it will go some way toward to rehabilitating the 2012 Draft, which to date has seen tepid results from Edmonton’s picks. In another way, though, it will raise serious questions, most notably how a quality defenceman identified by the Oilers’ European scouts managed to slip out of the team’s hands after it spent a draft pick to secure his rights.”

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And here we are.

If anyone wonders why some fans are so keen for the Oilers to clean house in hockey ops, this ongoing undervaluing of puck-moving d-men might well be Exhibit A.

Game Day 69 Oilers vs Rangers

This in from Reid Wilkins of CHED:

Draisaitl-McDavid-Kassian

Khaira-RNH-Gagner

Rieder-Cave-Chiasson

Malone-Brodziak-Currie

Rattie extra. Lucic not on the ice.

Klefbom-Larsson

Nurse-Russell

Sekera-Benning

Koskinen

I’m glad to see Chiasson out of the top 6, as he’s too slow in that role. Could be decent on a forechecking third line, so we’ll see. I’d prefer to see Currie given a chance with RNH and Gagner, as the guy has some offensive pop, but Khaira and RNH have worked well together in the past.

On defence, Nurse and Russell have struggled to move the puck. Maybe time to try Sekera and Nurse together on the second pairing, with Nurse on right side, or go with Sekera and Russell again?